


Cooking and Caring

by SunlightOnTheWater



Series: Ruby and Sam [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestication, F/M, Food Issues, Sam Winchester and Mental Health Issues, Sam Winchester-centric, Sick Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 19:49:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1870191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunlightOnTheWater/pseuds/SunlightOnTheWater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruby, as it turns out, can cook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cooking and Caring

Ruby, as it turned out, can cook. Jess couldn't cook, not to save her life, but she could _bake_. She had been a stress baker and she had filled their apartment with the scents of melting chocolate and fresh lemon during exam weeks. Then Jess had burned up on the ceiling and taken her stress baking with her. The only time Sam had ever indulged in in junk food eating fests was when he'd lived with Jess. He dreamed of her cooking sometimes but he always woke with the taste of copper on his tongue and smoke caught in the back of his throat. This morning was no different.

He had dreamed of Jess and the smell of freshly baked cookies. Then the blood and smoke invaded and he woke up coughing. His throat felt scratchy and for a moment, staring at the cream colored ceiling, he couldn't remember where he was. Then it sank in that he was in his fortress of a home with the warmth of where Ruby had been lying cuddled up with him just cooling. "I think you're getting sick." Her sweet voice spoke from the doorway and he lifted his heavy head from the soft pillows to see her wearing one of his red plaid shirts and holding a steaming cream coffee cup with a red and gold rooster on it. "You've been coughing all night. I made you some lemon tea with honey."

"Thanks," he croaked at her, gingerly taking the warm mug from her and sipping at it hesitantly. Ruby smiled at him and sat down on the bed next to him, smoothing his sweaty hair off his forehead.

"I want you to stay in bed today, okay Sam?" she told him. "No more working on the downstairs bathroom. We have one working one upstairs and that's enough. Got it?"

"Got it," he told her in his hoarse voice.

"Promise," she prodded.

"I promise." He finished his tea and drifted off to sleep with her hand stroking through his hair. He woke up with her sitting next to him read _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ in her soft, sweet voice. It was an old, battered copy that Sam had bought not long after he moved here, and Ruby absolutely loved it.

"You're up," she said brightly. "Are you hungry?" The thought of food made his stomach roll. Sam didn't have a good relationship with food on the best of days, mostly sticking to bland salads in order to keep everything down, but today after dreaming of Jess's death and waking up sick nothing they had sounded good. It must have shown on his face because Ruby frowned at him. "You need to eat Sam. I'll make you some soup." She leaned over to kiss his forehead before placing a bookmark in the book and leaving him alone in their bedroom. He fell asleep to her rattling pots and pans downstairs in the kitchen directly below their bedroom.

He woke up to a wonderful smell, beef and potatoes, and his stomach rumbled hungrily. He hadn't eaten anything since yesterday afternoon, the salad Ruby had shoved on him, and now his body decided to remind him that it needed food. Ruby came in carrying one of the wooden trays she'd bought from a garage sale a week ago. On it was a steaming bowl of beef stew. Sam could see cut potatoes and thin chunks of carrots and celery lingering amongst the beef. He took one bite and then finished the bowl before he even realized what he was eating. Ruby was beaming at him, dark eyes brightened with hope. "Do you like it?"

"It's delicious," he told her honestly and her smile widened. "Ruby, did you make this?"

"I like to cook," she said, flushing pale pink. That was interesting; Sam hadn't been aware that demons could blush but then again Ruby wasn't just some demon. He filed that away for later research. "I can't bake very well, except for bread, but I can cook."

"You're amazing," he told her and she beamed. He fell asleep to her reading again. That night he dreamed of Ruby showing up on his front door. It was a good dream.

He woke up to Ruby reading _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_ (or Philosopher's Stone if you lived in England). He was feeling better and Ruby actually permitted him downstairs to eat a couple pieces of dry toast and a little fresh fruit. The two of them curled up on their couch, a little old but still comfortable if you avoided the one poky spring on the far left, and watched _Finding Nemo_ which Ruby had insisted on buying five days ago because she'd never seen it and Sam had used the "Just keep swimming" line on her once. At the end of the movie Ruby heated up two bowls of soup for them and they channel surfed until they settled on _The Mummy_. Sam fell asleep part way through. When he woke he smelled something wonderful. Ruby had decided to get up after he'd drifted off and had made clam chowder.

After Sam recovered from his cold, Ruby made sure to cook twice a week. Sam had never been comfortable eating his fill, not when Dean sometimes went without to make sure he had something to eat before his older brother had hit his growth spurt, and his relationship with food had been sketchy since then. Ruby's cooking seemed to change that. For one thing, it was hard to ignore the fact that you were hungry when you could smell the food almost all day. For another thing, between Sam's translation skills and Ruby's work as an office assistant in a psychologists office that she was very well paid for, they had money. Maybe it wasn't a ton but it was enough for them to eat well and they did. Some days he still struggled to eat, struggled to keep it down, but he was better. And it was worth all the work, all the silent justifying of his existence that he did, to see Ruby's face light up in a brilliant smile.


End file.
